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Travel Management metrics that companies are missing on

Companies, all over the world, aren’t using the right metrics for the evaluation of the success of their business travel programs, mentions the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) and BCD Travel, which carried out this survey with more than 300 travel managers all over the globe. The survey threw light on the disconnects between the factors that travel managers mentioned were important for assessment, and those actually subjected to measurement. The travel program metrics under consideration include Spend/savings, Booking statistics, Policy compliance, Traveler satisfaction, Traveler engagement, Traveler fiction, Trip success rate, Call/contact centre stats, and HR information. Here are the survey results of ACTE and BCD:

Many companies are found to be heavily dependent on third-party sources instead of getting qualitative feedback from their travelling employees themselves. Travel managers need to directly engage their employees to measure satisfaction and the success and effectiveness of any business travel program. But unfortunately, this method is, more often than not, overlooked. Travel managers should make this engagement happen in real time via travelling employee’s preferred channels. They should leverage mobile communication to drive this engagement, as mentioned in the report by ACTE and BCD.

Travel Managers shouldn’t wait until the trip is over to collect feedback from the traveler. The best time for capturing that information is in the moment. And any better way to capture a travelling employee’s response and experience in real time than through mobile?

Most business travelers have no problems echoing their voices through mobile as they feel it is comfortable to do so. Therefore, mobile communication can increase response rate as well as how reliable the feedback is. The study further reveals that the feedback collated by the traveler manager from the steady flow of information may be significant, actionable and usable in the short term. For instance, if a traveler is going through any issues with a particular hotel, he or she could well flag that issue in real time, relay it appropriately via his/her preferred channel and react accordingly to settle the issue or rebook other travelling employees.